SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia could adopt a clean energy target by the end of the year, heeding the call of national energy providers and scientists as a means to cut carbon emissions and cap soaring power prices.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government was “carefully considering” the recommendation by the nation’s chief scientist Alan Finkel as a way to ensure affordable, reliable and cleaner power.

“We’re certainly aiming to make a decision by the end of the year,” Turnbull told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Finkel in June led a list of recommendations presented to the government aimed at ending a decade of political warfare over climate policy, meaning coal-fired power generation using carbon-capture technology could potentially be used alongside gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Energy companies argue they need long-term policy certainty to invest in new power generation and bring down electricity bills – and the key to unlocking that was to roll out a national clean energy target.

The government is awaiting a report from the Australian Energy Market Operator, which Turnbull labeled “a critical thing” before moving to decide on a target.

“First, we need to be satisfied as to what the gap in baseload power is going to be over the next five and 10 years,” he said.

Yes, what Australia really needs is a well conceived and considered plan to devolve back into 2nd world status.
“When sufficient layers of management are superimposed atop one another, disaster is not left to chance.”

You are absolutely right.
“Australia could adopt a clean energy target by the end of the year, heeding the call of national energy providers and scientists as a means to cut carbon emissions and cap soaring power prices.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government was “carefully considering” the recommendation by the nation’s chief scientist Alan Finkel as a way to ensure affordable, reliable and cleaner power.”

We in the U.S. feel sorry for what is happening in Australia. Australia already has the true answers in hand and it is not the renewables! With the industry of the people, unlimited coal reserves, and huge options for fracking, it appears your politicians have figured out how to destroy an entire nation. They are creating an expensive, unreliable power grid (not good for industry), and the need for a back-up system that is redundant and will more than double the cost of energy, hitting the poor the hardest. What more do you want particularly in light of the fact that CO2 cannot be responsible for as much as 10% of the global warming that has been claimed and in fact a number of regions of the world are showing global cooling.

Australia would be better served to drive a some of those Asia-bound LNG transport ships down to NSW and SA to keep domestic electricity prices from further skyrocketing. That in turn will keep industry/manufacturing and good paying jobs from further fleeing to Asia.

The problem of course is Japan is highly industrialized and even more dependent on fossil-fuel energy with the shutdown of their nuclear-powered generation plants. So Japan is willing to pay top dollar for LNG.

So Australia’s real choice must be to rapidly expand the NG supply infrastructure. Coal gasification is an option, if it weren’t for the batshit crazy environmentalists that have been voted into to various Oz state governments.

So shale fracking and expansion of existing drilled NG resources seems to be the best near term option. Then run a fleet of LNG tankers around the coasts to the East and SouthEast coastal ports where it is needed for powering modern NG electricity generation plants.

You only have your own state politicians to blame. In Western Australia we put provisions in to place that linked a percentage of GAS to the local market for each new field. Blind Freddy could see what was going to happen but apparently not Eastern State politicians.

Judging by what has happened so far it is obvious what the base load energy gap will be – lots of blackouts for ordinary Australians, collapsing industries and as the madness unfolds the falling apart of transport and food distribution systems. Do they really want to do this. I suppose if they rush ahead at least it will eventually be so obvious a disaster that even the EU will eventually see sense. Hopefully sanity will prevail in the U.K. And we will be fracking cheap energy as the climate scare disintegrates into a gnashing of green teeth and relief from the sane part of society.

What has happened so far is extreme weather and extraordinarily bad grid management.

Thank goodness the battery systems, new wind and solar CSP going into South Australia will prevent future blackouts. (so long as they set the grid trip up properly – something the Germans sorted out a decade ago)

Griff, do you read your own posts and critique them before you post them? Your posts are so blatant sometimes that you remind me of the Iraqi Information Minister, Al-Sahhaf during the 2003 Iraq war. He was called Baghdad Bob because it was obvious everything he was saying was propaganda (in the style of previous propagandists like Hanoi Hannah).

Maybe someone here can give you an appropriate nickname. Something that matches the propaganda style.

No Griff what has happened is Australia has destroyed it’s reliable power system in favor of a useless power system that does not work. Wind and solar are a waste of time and energy and will not replace base power and since they blew up the last base-load coal plant the time of darkness is upon them. If not now it will be soon. The popcorn is ready.

I am from Australia and can tell you that the current “conservative” party will be massacred at the next election. Turnbull is currently in favour of a battery system in Sth Aus. that will cost in excess of $700,000,000. when they could have saved a coal powered power plant for $25,000,000…the power plant would have produced 100 times as much power.
The lying loony left blame it all on “Extreme weather” etc because that’s what the group-think freaks tell them to think. Meanwhile all of Sty. Aus. business is leaving the state…

Talking out of a hole in the back of your head from your comfy armchair again Griff? Please don’t talk about extreme weather in Australia if your only reference is the BBC, ABC or The Guardian, your misinformation is showing (Again).

Yes I have had just about enough of what appears to be some British troll nutter telling us what is happening in Australia as what he gleamed from some news articles. As a few have commented as the East Coast will have power blackouts over summer there will be repercussions and you can expect a sudden drop in renewable energy support. Griff, perhaps stick to commenting on Britian you might at least ahve some idea what is going on there.

Don’t bet on sanity prevailing in the UK …… I’ve just received a response from Department for
Transport and OLEV about the significant CO2 emission increase that will come from the electric vehicle only policy. They rubbish the Swedish study that showed 15-20 tonnes of CO2 emitted in battery manufacture with 50% renewable energy used – because Tesla will have batteries made with renewable energy.

They either choose to ignore or don’t know that China is predicted to have 65% of global Lithium Ion battery manufacture in the next few years – seems they are also oblivious too the Doubling of CO2 emissions by China by 2030 that was agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement. Don’t seem aware that China has another 700 coal fired power stations planned!

So with potentially 65% of batteries coming from China and not made with renewable the UK will be directly responsible for a 9% – 18% increase in CO2 emissions above UK’s 2015 levels after 2040. But OLEV are convinced there will be no increase at all – simply a reduction. If the emissions are in China I guess they don’t accept them as a UK responsibility.

There are none so blinds as those who will not see ….. Green ‘thinking’ seems to require a suspension of logic and an ability to deny reality.

Remember the chinese emissions won’t be counted, in the first instance until 2030 they are ignored and then after that you just need creative number keeping. It’s a bit like the German coal power stations that are still operating but simply exporting their power, the emission don’t count to Germany. What is the bet the importing countries also won’t count the emissions so those German coal power stations magically don’t produce any emissions. There are no control bodies, fines on punishments to the agreements and does anyone think countries won’t cheat …. really.

seconded!
sooner hes dissed the better
and ditherall in sa need to be removed asap
see qlds trying to bribe people to install remote controls run by powercos to lower power into aircons etc
no mention of burning out motors of course..
vic already got shat on properly with forced smart meters that now cost us 5x as much for service fees as they did prior.

Demand increases were replaced by price increases. Energy price increases will lead to cost increases for manufacturing and make their products more costly and less competitive in the global market. This leads to relocation of manufacturers to countries with lower cost energy. This will lower demand thereby further driving up the price of energy for those who cannot relocate

Those decisions were made by Howard in 1991. That was the root cause of the situation we are in today. Gillard, carbon tax 2010. Power prices went up. Abbott, carbon tax gone, 2013. Power prices went down. Abbott ousted for Turnbull, carbon tax reinstated July 1st 2016. Power prices went up, ~20% July 1st 2017, and will continue to rise at about ~20% year on year. I am not sure what Turnbull is “doing” with power bosses, but I think his efforts will be a waste (Nothing new there). No point trying to drop power prices ALL THE WHILE we still have RETs! We are P!$$ING against the wind.

In a way it’s a godsend that the example for the world will be set by devastating only the 13th ranked economy in a country less populous than Texas. Damned generous of the Aussies to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Gonna miss that Carlton Draught, though.

About the only thing we can be sure of is that state managed energy will be a great deal more costly and less reliable than what could be provided by private industry responding to market incentives. If this the recommendations of state run science are accepted, the rest of the country will end up in the same mess as South Australia.

Another govt/nation being stampeded into doing something RIGHT NOW, rather than understanding future energy sources such as molten salt reactors, which are not far off, and are cheaper than any power technology, will be built in factories, require no cooling water, can be deployed rapidly with minimal site preparation – they can be located within cities or towns – basically ANYWHERE you choose, including underground.
And in case this guy has been on Mars, electric cars will be in mass deployment even sooner. So stop and THINK, stupid, before making yet another idiotic and expensive decision. Govt leaders are such clueless pansies. And don’t rely on the words or opinions of ONE scientist. Whatever happened to diversity? Especially diversity of thought?

Makes no sense…..if it’s really about CO2…then these countries make no difference…until China, India, and over 200 other countries are on board..
Might as well say “my neighbors really fat….so I’m going to stop eating”

If your problem is “soaring power prices”, wouldn’t you want to adopt a Lower Price Target and work toward achieving that goal? Adopting a Clean Energy Target seems like a good way to insure that, as Mr. Obama said, “electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket”.

A way to achieve that goal, whilst preventing Green Zombie Apocalypse, is to set a budget for “clean” energy subsidies, lets say 10% of consumer bills, but politicians are attracted to “targets” like moths to a flame, and run from limits to their spending like cockroaches under attack.

If you set a “Clean Energy” subsidy that is less then the current amount spent on “Clean Energy” subsidies then companies would begin exiting the “Clean Energy” business because they could no longer make as much money. If you set it higher then you would get even more “soaring power prices”. My personal preference would be “Clean Energy” subsidy = 0.

Green heads exploding! Problem is NONE of it will be sold and burnt in Australia. So global CO2 emissions will not be affected by any emissions reductions Australia, stupidly, engages in. Shoot, aim, ready!

The alternative is worse as the ALP are promising an even higher renewables target. As stated previously in the thread the problem is the successful lobbying by environmental groups on the state governments to leave the (abundant) fossil fuels in the ground

The Federal government has no ability to force anything to be left in the ground. It always surprises me how ignorant of Australian law the public are. So here is a quick reviewhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_mining_law
Key point: “State ownership of minerals has had the important result that governments, rather than private landholders, determine the legal regimes governing mineral exploration and production.”

Only your State government can force resources to be left in the ground because they own it !!!!!!!

So even something unthinkable happened like the Greens won Federal Government they have no ability to block it’s use. All they could try to do is impose a Federal tax over any export and that would set up an interesting situation in the High Court about a largely unruled on relationship between State and Federal government. The situation has existed for many years already with Uranium where successive Federal Labour governments would have loved to ban the mining of it but they can’t.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_Australia

You will note the only part Federal Government gets involved in is when it’s exported.

There are no killer crocs in the location shown near the bottom right of the map (the sharks ate them all). Everybody knows that the koala is not a bear. And where I live (near the sharks at the top right of the map) there are lots of crocodiles and we don’t swim in the ocean because of the deadly jellyfish.

Yeabut at least those ‘deadly spiders in the dunny’ are no longer where shown on the map. Apparently we had a plague of ‘daddy long legs’ (not sure what they are called in the rest of the world) in Queensland a few years back, and they killed all the redback spiders here. One less thing trying to kill us at least :)

I suspect the problem Downunder is the proportion of your population which lives in larger cities. Like the USA, these folks tend to lean left I’ll bet. Looks like about 15mm of your 24mm live in your top 10 cities. Promise to take care of them and you get what you have. Works here too! Evidently the densely packed areas of our country voted for Hillary enough to get her a majority. Thank God for the electoral college! In any event, good luck.

Euan Mearns on his Energy Matters blog, http://euanmearns.com/ has today an informative paper on the Australian energy situation. There is lots of good stuff and I recommend everybody (everybody interested in facts that is) read it. Of particular interest is a series of charts showing that the wind does not blow all the time anywhere in Australia, therefore, the electricity system will have to have 100% coal/gas/diesel power generation capacity if the lights are to stay on. 50%, 75%, 90% are no good. Gotta be 100%.

Another site of energy interest is https://demanda.ree.es/movil/canarias/el_hierro/total It shows the wind, pumped hydro and diesel power generation status minute by minute for the “windy” Canary Island of El Hierro. El Hierro is small, about 10,000 residents, and was outfitted with wind turbines and pumped storage nominally designed to provide all of the island’s electricity instead of the old diesel system. It isn’t working out that way. Sometimes the wind simply does not blow and the diesels have to carry the load. It seems the diesels are always running regardless of wind, perhaps to provide frequency control? The cost of El Hierro electricity runs about $1.20 per Kwh but most of that is paid by Spanish taxpayers.

“IQ of a wombat”
Scenes in Parliament:
Mr Fred Daly, Member for Grayndler: “….The honorable member opposite has the brains of a sparrow.”
Speaker: “Order! Order! The honorable member will withdraw that remark.”
Mr Daly: “Mr Speaker, in deference I withdraw. The honorable member does not have the brains of a sparrow.”

Griff – please unenlighten us what precisely you meant by the intriguing reference to “unnecessary infrastructure”? A small list of examples would be instructive. This is a genuine interest – I can even give you an example which you might agree with: Sparta Prague football club have electric heaters installed 35 feet above the spectator stands to keep their fans warm watching the football. I thought I was starting to suffer from hot flushes until I looked up and realized in near disbelief what was going on. They must have several coal fired plants going flat out to keep that going for 90 minutes. Not proper hardy folk like Green Bay’s fans I suspect. But I don’t suppose this would figure as an item on your Australia list.
Looking forward with interest…

At the top of the list of unnecessary infrastructure would be transmission pylons capable of withstanding the mild storm which brought down the entire South Australian electrical system earlier this year.

Oh, wait. That was necessary infrastructure which didn’t get built. Or if they hadn’t demolished the Port Augusta power station and been relying on unreliable wind power generators it was unnecessary infrastructure that did get built and then fell over.

The politicians captivated by the saturation of media and academia with a constant message of CAGW are sheep. They are not clear thinkers or statesmen, and they default to the various green lobby’s talking points.
“Unnecessary Infrastructure” has been a line around for a long time now – and is used to suggest that transmission lines are gold plated instead of merely fit for purpose.
I happen to be in an industry which assists with the Electricity network in South Australia, and this justification for rising prices as nothing to do with renewables is a real stinker. Why have new power lines been built? They are built to service all the new wind farms that are built – all at some distance from major population centres. So new power line costs are required because…[common Griff .. fill in the dots..]
As for “gold plating”, there was a lot of comment here at the time of the state blackout that the towers that were built were anything but “gold plated”. A criticism that I felt was a little harsh given that it was a rare series of powerful tornadoes that did the damage. But it is still clear that the power lines were not over engineered.

Talking of Australia’s ABC they are currently airing a series called Utopia. Last night’s episode was where the National Building Authority was asked to review the government’s defence white paper. The problem was that the white paper was inpenetrable goo (as they usually are).

Once seen it is impossible to see any government announcement as anything other than the output of a totally dysfunctional process. On the bright side, the surprising thing about governments is not that they work so badly but that they work at all.

I commend the series to WUWT readers interested in the Australian government’s clean energy plan

“affordable, reliable and cleaner power”
Translation: Unaffordable electricity prices (they have doubled in the last five years) but not as high as they would be if we adopted our opponent’s plan for an even higher renewable energy target.
Unreliable power until we build the world’s biggest battery, a huge pumped hydro system, and lots more peaking gas turbine stations as we shut down reliable 24×7 coal stations. But trust me,electricity will be cheaper because as your Prime Minister I have spoken harshly to the electricity generators and retailers.
Cleaner power meaning we will cut carbon emissions by destroying Australia’s low cost coal stations to meet Paris commitments and sending all job creating industries offshore.

For those who have not yet worked it out by looking at his photo, Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s fearless leader, is an idiot. Unfortunately, the leader of the opposition who is likely to replace him at the next election is also an idiot. The voices of the sensible people in Parliament are not being heard in the debate.

Not likely we should get the one-two from the High court soon. They will highly likely knock down the same sex marriage ballot because it’s spending tax payer money without a bill of parliament. Then they will likely rule all members referred to it as being ineligible to be elected, despite Malcom saying it won’t happen. We will then see a tit for tat start where up to 20-30 members will all be ruled ineligible because there are a pile who are actually in breach on paid government relationships. We haven’t even started with that part of the section yet. Australians may care to watch a constitutional lawyer view on ithttp://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/national-press-club/2017-08-30/national-press-club:-george-williams/8856740

So I am looking forward to not having a working Parliament until at least December at about which time a few power blackouts will kick in. Got popcorn anyone.

Agree Mike, lack of choice in political candidates is going to destroy Australia. We have Labour and then try hard Labour, no centre right conservative party at all. Turnbull has pushed more traditional conservatives towards new or fringe parties. The liberal vote should collapse next election.

Turnbull forgets he was in the Govn’t that started this “clean energy” boondoggle with renewable energy targets (RETs) in 1991. And we trust him now? The next federal election is in 2019, and his seat is under threat. PM’s don’t like poor polling in Aus, forget poor governance.

The clean energy thing is just another virtue signal to the chardonnay set. The real issue here is energy supply. We have had 3 coal fired power stations close or reduce capacity, with NOTHING to replace it. We will have black & brown outs this summer. Some conservative politicians are pushing for a new coal fired plant, but facing the inevitable backlash from the ‘true believers’. I suspect that when these black & brown outs happen and affect everyday peoples lives, then these people will have an opinion and probably voice it whereas they didnt necessarily have an opinion previously.

Mark it wont make a bit of difference. The Labor and Green parties will all chime out that the power losses are all due to unprecedented demand caused by global warming/changing/manipulating and the stupid media will put it on the front pages and we will stumble on onwards and downwards.

When back in the time of PM Rudd, the then opposition l leader was Turnbull. He agreed with all that Rudd was saying about Climate change.m Then he was rolled by Tony Abbott who said that “It was all a loqd of crap’. Then later when Abbott was OM the marginal seat MP’s paacked and Turnbull took over again.. So now we have a Green government..

Regarding the chief scientist, , he was never asked to explain the properties of the gas CO2, so his report is a Green ceompromise..

Never mind when the lights start to go out, , first in South Australia , sanity will l finally emerge

“Sanity will finally emerge.”
Why? The public seems to believe that the more renewable sources of energy—wind turbines, batteries and solar arrays—there be the cheaper the energy becomes. Wrong-headed it may be but there it is. And all political parties in South Australia agree.

Turnbull and Liberal/National Party (equiv to Republicans in US) would have dearly loved to curb RET and renewable incentives but he is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

On the one hand the opposition in Labor and Greens (equiv to Democrats in US) want to be cleaner than clean mud with a target of 50% renewable. They, with a handful of independents, control the Senate which is required to pass all Federal legislation. Further the State Govts are mainly Labor and have direct control of power supply and the extraction of underground gas.

The other crunch rock is that Turnbull is stuck with the Paris accord. Such is Angela Merkel’s new international cooperation that the French threatened Oz when it seemed we might not ratify COP 21.

Trump can thumb his nose at the Europeans quite unlike Oz which is more vulnerable with its much smaller population and economy. I note the French did not threaten Trump nor that the US would be made to “pay” if it pulled out of the Paris Accord.

The best Turnbull can do is force the renewable industry to provide its own backup; Finkel recommends something like 1.5 hours of power backup – tokenism. Green ideology permeates most of the sound waves, particularly the national broadcaster, the ABC. Turnbull on a rare occasion let fly at the ABC the other night (on another matter) so it is not that he is unaware of the damage this renewable junk is causing Oz.

Subsidizing inefficient renewable energy is economic vandalism. Oz is simply forced to play this bizarre game of weakening itself in line with Europe. Bear in mind this was led by Obama! Be thankful the US escaped Hillary.

He should cancel all renewable energy targets and aid. The greens and the left are banging on about it is the cheapest form of electricity generation – why would they need 20 billion a year to support them?

I still say that Turnbull is a Green in his thinking, he is certainly a left wing. LiberaL, similar to Don Chip who founded the Australian Democrats, whereas Abbott is hard right , similar to the right wing of the US Rep. party.

If Turnbull had any backbone he has only to ask the Chief scientiswt to say if in fact that CO2 is a good gas, essential for all life on this planet, , and the while silly “House of Cards” will come crashing down.

Turnbull is a nightmare scenario as a right wing PM for Australia. He comes from the eastern suburbs of Sydney (read very wealthy and very green), he has always been in favour of renewables and lost his position due to this.He quietly agrees with almost everything the left wingers bang on about.

The guy is also a gutless PITA with about the same weight of balls as a chicken. Today he seriously stated on TV that Australia will come to the aid of America if they invade Nth Korea, as if the USA needs our aid?

The country has gone from $40M + in 2007 to half a trillion of debt since the labor party and then the Liberals came in. The left wing argument is 1/2 a trillion dollars in a country of 24 million is nothing compared to Europe or the USA. Pathetic arguments. We will be begging for reliable power in 10 years.

And we have billionare types like Dick Smith who says Australia will have a population of 100million, all Asians. Xenophobic much Dick? 100million people doing what exactly? There is an ever shrinking employment/industrial base as it is.

Turnbull “right wing”? Seriously? By your own subsequent reasoning, he’s as mad green as. Always had been. Through gritted teeth he holds the line on border protection only to save his skin from a revolt by the conservative faction. He’s quite simply a waffling, dithering, zero-principled dud led by the nose by a nightmare Labor Opposition.

“Clean Energy Target” (CET) is simply a new name for the existing “Renewable Energy Target” (RET). In keeping with Australia’s commitment to the Paris agreement, the RET is 25%.
Whatever the number is, the effect on global temperature will be essentially zero. Indeed, Finkel himself conceded to a Senate inquiry that the effect would be “nothing, no effect”. So, by any sane reasoning, any RET or CET greater than zero, quite simply bonkers.

Yet, with Monty Python logic, Finkel himself recommended a CET of 42.5%. PM Turnbull, an appalling dud leader, is stupid and green left enough to adopt it. Opposition Labor’s RET is 50%. Tweedledum and Tweedledee idiots. Peas in a madhouse pod. God have mercy on Australia.

Why is an energy provider concerned with “carbon” and imploring the government to do “something”? Money. Otherwise, it continues to make affordable, reliable energy with miniscule climatological impact.

95% of Australian politicians are brain dead if there brains where made of dynamite they wound not be enough to blow there hat off , NEXT WEEKS WEATHER REPORT for our ski fields https://www.ski.com.au/weather/janesweather.html up to 100cm of snow could fall on a already deep base

The big question is when Bill Shorton becones PM, a certainty at present, will he do a Bob Hawke and knowing as did Bob where all the Labour bodies are buried, will he forget his talk of 50 % renewables and do what needs doing,. Coal fired power stations and back to government ownership of energy. Sadly the market has failed this country, so lets go back to what worked, especially here in SA, the Electricity Trust were wonderful at providing cheap electricity.

Average electricity price in Australia should be 1/4 current average price.
Malcolm answers to Black Rock Investments and allied funds; the globalist green energy cartel.
Australians are too busy or too uninformed to realise AU cause of expensive electricity.
Green globalists are stealing our money and displacing our industries and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Issue hasn’t reached crisis point so expect more manipulation and talk about lowering prices; all fake.
We’re moving our new coating line to China because electricity is our largest production expense,
Three years ago when we started line construction energy was affordable; not now so we’re out of here.